FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[10]The "Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France" (Tome XXIII, XXIV and XXV) contains a contribution by M. Raymond Toinet entitled: "Les Ecrivains moralistes au 17ième siècle"; being an alphabetical nomenclature of moral writings published during the age of Louis the Fourteenth (1638-1715). In this list works of a feminist or an anti-feminist nature figure so largely that little doubt can be entertained as to the interest taken in the topic under discussion. They may be conveniently classified as follows:1.Assertions of female superiority, including a. o. two French translations of Agrippa, three pieces entitled: "Le Triomphe des Dames", and one by Mlle. Jacquette Guillaume, entitled: "Les Dames Illustres". They were frequently combined with attacks on the male half of humanity, as in the case of Regnard's "Satire contre les Maris".2.Apologies for the female sex, including Perrault's "Apologie des Femmes", Poullain de la Barre's "Egalité des deux Sexes", and a Latin translation of Anna Maria Schuurman. Some were meant as a refutation of some male attack. To this class belong Ninon de l'Enclos' "Coquette Vengee" and a number of replies to Boileau's satire.3.Attacks on the female sex, which are gradually diminishing in number, or rather changing from the direct invective to the moral essay with a didactic purpose, busying itself with the female morals and the female character. A collection of pieces dealing with the problem of sexual preference was published in 1698 by de Vertron under the name of "La nouvelle Pandore, ou les femmes illustres du siècle de Louis le Grand".4.Rules of female conduct, for the use of young ladies "about to enter the world", insisting chiefly on the feminine duty of preserving the reputation. A translation of Lord Halifax's "Advice" (see page 83), "Etrennes ou conseils d'un homme de qualité à sa fille" seems to have attracted some notice.5.Pieces dealing with the relations between the sexes in daily intercourse, including the subjects of love and gallantry, and of marriage. Some are directly favourable to the state of matrimony, pointing to the reciprocal duties of the partners in the contract, and instructing them in the readiest way to happiness; others, frequently deriving their inspiration from Boileau, arguing about marriage as a social institution and enumerating its advantages and its drawbacks. To the period under discussion belongs a translation of Erasmus' "Christian Marriage".6.Treatises of female education, containing a plea for the development of the female intellect. They are, as yet, remarkably few. Beyond the contributions by Poullain de la Barre and Fénelon there are some half-dozen pieces dealing with the education of girls on a religious basis, and a few in which the question of the pursuit of science and philosophy by women is stated and answered favourably. There was an "Apologie de la science des Dames, par Cléante", (1662); a treatise entitled: "Avantages que les femmes peuvent recevoir de la philosophie et principalement de la morale", (1667); another by René Bary bearing the somewhat questionable title of "La fine philosophie accommodée à l'intelligence des dames", and, in conclusion, one by Guillaume Colletet, headed: "Question célèbre, s'il est nécessaire ou non que les filles soient savantes, agitée de part et d'autre par Mlle Anne Marie de Schurmann, hollandoise, et André Rivet, poictevin, le tout mis en françois par le sieur Colletet" (1646).[11]"La Nouvelle Colonie, ou la Ligue des Femmes", first presented in the Théâtre italien on the 18th of April 1729, a three-act comedy, afterwards reduced to one single act to be performed in the "théâtres de société", and published in this form in theMercure. (Cf. Larroumet;Marivaux, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, Paris 1882).[12]Such, at least, is the description of Mme Geoffrin's character in M. E. Pilon's "Portraits français". M. G. Lanson, in his "Lettres du dix-huitième siècle", accuses her of vanity and consequent despotic leanings. "Elle aimait à conseiller ses amis, et les régentait en mère un peu despotique; elle n'aimait pas les indépendants, les âmes indociles et fières qui ne se laissent pas protéger, et veulent être consultés dans le bien qu'on leur fait".[13]That a great many of the Utilitarian ideas of John Locke may be traced to their origin in the works of Montaigne has been demonstrated by M. Pierre Villey in his "L'influence de Montaigne sur les Idées pédagogiques de Locke et de Rousseau", who thus claims for the literature of his own country an honour which was commonly granted to that of England.[14]The education recommended for Emile is not domestic. He was to be kept carefully isolated from the world, so as to escape its taint, until such time as his character would be fully matured, placing him above the reach of disastrous influences. A similar principle had prevailed at Mme de Maintenon's establishment of St. Cyr.

[10]The "Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France" (Tome XXIII, XXIV and XXV) contains a contribution by M. Raymond Toinet entitled: "Les Ecrivains moralistes au 17ième siècle"; being an alphabetical nomenclature of moral writings published during the age of Louis the Fourteenth (1638-1715). In this list works of a feminist or an anti-feminist nature figure so largely that little doubt can be entertained as to the interest taken in the topic under discussion. They may be conveniently classified as follows:1.Assertions of female superiority, including a. o. two French translations of Agrippa, three pieces entitled: "Le Triomphe des Dames", and one by Mlle. Jacquette Guillaume, entitled: "Les Dames Illustres". They were frequently combined with attacks on the male half of humanity, as in the case of Regnard's "Satire contre les Maris".2.Apologies for the female sex, including Perrault's "Apologie des Femmes", Poullain de la Barre's "Egalité des deux Sexes", and a Latin translation of Anna Maria Schuurman. Some were meant as a refutation of some male attack. To this class belong Ninon de l'Enclos' "Coquette Vengee" and a number of replies to Boileau's satire.3.Attacks on the female sex, which are gradually diminishing in number, or rather changing from the direct invective to the moral essay with a didactic purpose, busying itself with the female morals and the female character. A collection of pieces dealing with the problem of sexual preference was published in 1698 by de Vertron under the name of "La nouvelle Pandore, ou les femmes illustres du siècle de Louis le Grand".4.Rules of female conduct, for the use of young ladies "about to enter the world", insisting chiefly on the feminine duty of preserving the reputation. A translation of Lord Halifax's "Advice" (see page 83), "Etrennes ou conseils d'un homme de qualité à sa fille" seems to have attracted some notice.5.Pieces dealing with the relations between the sexes in daily intercourse, including the subjects of love and gallantry, and of marriage. Some are directly favourable to the state of matrimony, pointing to the reciprocal duties of the partners in the contract, and instructing them in the readiest way to happiness; others, frequently deriving their inspiration from Boileau, arguing about marriage as a social institution and enumerating its advantages and its drawbacks. To the period under discussion belongs a translation of Erasmus' "Christian Marriage".6.Treatises of female education, containing a plea for the development of the female intellect. They are, as yet, remarkably few. Beyond the contributions by Poullain de la Barre and Fénelon there are some half-dozen pieces dealing with the education of girls on a religious basis, and a few in which the question of the pursuit of science and philosophy by women is stated and answered favourably. There was an "Apologie de la science des Dames, par Cléante", (1662); a treatise entitled: "Avantages que les femmes peuvent recevoir de la philosophie et principalement de la morale", (1667); another by René Bary bearing the somewhat questionable title of "La fine philosophie accommodée à l'intelligence des dames", and, in conclusion, one by Guillaume Colletet, headed: "Question célèbre, s'il est nécessaire ou non que les filles soient savantes, agitée de part et d'autre par Mlle Anne Marie de Schurmann, hollandoise, et André Rivet, poictevin, le tout mis en françois par le sieur Colletet" (1646).

1.Assertions of female superiority, including a. o. two French translations of Agrippa, three pieces entitled: "Le Triomphe des Dames", and one by Mlle. Jacquette Guillaume, entitled: "Les Dames Illustres". They were frequently combined with attacks on the male half of humanity, as in the case of Regnard's "Satire contre les Maris".2.Apologies for the female sex, including Perrault's "Apologie des Femmes", Poullain de la Barre's "Egalité des deux Sexes", and a Latin translation of Anna Maria Schuurman. Some were meant as a refutation of some male attack. To this class belong Ninon de l'Enclos' "Coquette Vengee" and a number of replies to Boileau's satire.3.Attacks on the female sex, which are gradually diminishing in number, or rather changing from the direct invective to the moral essay with a didactic purpose, busying itself with the female morals and the female character. A collection of pieces dealing with the problem of sexual preference was published in 1698 by de Vertron under the name of "La nouvelle Pandore, ou les femmes illustres du siècle de Louis le Grand".4.Rules of female conduct, for the use of young ladies "about to enter the world", insisting chiefly on the feminine duty of preserving the reputation. A translation of Lord Halifax's "Advice" (see page 83), "Etrennes ou conseils d'un homme de qualité à sa fille" seems to have attracted some notice.5.Pieces dealing with the relations between the sexes in daily intercourse, including the subjects of love and gallantry, and of marriage. Some are directly favourable to the state of matrimony, pointing to the reciprocal duties of the partners in the contract, and instructing them in the readiest way to happiness; others, frequently deriving their inspiration from Boileau, arguing about marriage as a social institution and enumerating its advantages and its drawbacks. To the period under discussion belongs a translation of Erasmus' "Christian Marriage".6.Treatises of female education, containing a plea for the development of the female intellect. They are, as yet, remarkably few. Beyond the contributions by Poullain de la Barre and Fénelon there are some half-dozen pieces dealing with the education of girls on a religious basis, and a few in which the question of the pursuit of science and philosophy by women is stated and answered favourably. There was an "Apologie de la science des Dames, par Cléante", (1662); a treatise entitled: "Avantages que les femmes peuvent recevoir de la philosophie et principalement de la morale", (1667); another by René Bary bearing the somewhat questionable title of "La fine philosophie accommodée à l'intelligence des dames", and, in conclusion, one by Guillaume Colletet, headed: "Question célèbre, s'il est nécessaire ou non que les filles soient savantes, agitée de part et d'autre par Mlle Anne Marie de Schurmann, hollandoise, et André Rivet, poictevin, le tout mis en françois par le sieur Colletet" (1646).

2.Apologies for the female sex, including Perrault's "Apologie des Femmes", Poullain de la Barre's "Egalité des deux Sexes", and a Latin translation of Anna Maria Schuurman. Some were meant as a refutation of some male attack. To this class belong Ninon de l'Enclos' "Coquette Vengee" and a number of replies to Boileau's satire.

3.Attacks on the female sex, which are gradually diminishing in number, or rather changing from the direct invective to the moral essay with a didactic purpose, busying itself with the female morals and the female character. A collection of pieces dealing with the problem of sexual preference was published in 1698 by de Vertron under the name of "La nouvelle Pandore, ou les femmes illustres du siècle de Louis le Grand".

4.Rules of female conduct, for the use of young ladies "about to enter the world", insisting chiefly on the feminine duty of preserving the reputation. A translation of Lord Halifax's "Advice" (see page 83), "Etrennes ou conseils d'un homme de qualité à sa fille" seems to have attracted some notice.

5.Pieces dealing with the relations between the sexes in daily intercourse, including the subjects of love and gallantry, and of marriage. Some are directly favourable to the state of matrimony, pointing to the reciprocal duties of the partners in the contract, and instructing them in the readiest way to happiness; others, frequently deriving their inspiration from Boileau, arguing about marriage as a social institution and enumerating its advantages and its drawbacks. To the period under discussion belongs a translation of Erasmus' "Christian Marriage".

6.Treatises of female education, containing a plea for the development of the female intellect. They are, as yet, remarkably few. Beyond the contributions by Poullain de la Barre and Fénelon there are some half-dozen pieces dealing with the education of girls on a religious basis, and a few in which the question of the pursuit of science and philosophy by women is stated and answered favourably. There was an "Apologie de la science des Dames, par Cléante", (1662); a treatise entitled: "Avantages que les femmes peuvent recevoir de la philosophie et principalement de la morale", (1667); another by René Bary bearing the somewhat questionable title of "La fine philosophie accommodée à l'intelligence des dames", and, in conclusion, one by Guillaume Colletet, headed: "Question célèbre, s'il est nécessaire ou non que les filles soient savantes, agitée de part et d'autre par Mlle Anne Marie de Schurmann, hollandoise, et André Rivet, poictevin, le tout mis en françois par le sieur Colletet" (1646).

[11]"La Nouvelle Colonie, ou la Ligue des Femmes", first presented in the Théâtre italien on the 18th of April 1729, a three-act comedy, afterwards reduced to one single act to be performed in the "théâtres de société", and published in this form in theMercure. (Cf. Larroumet;Marivaux, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, Paris 1882).

[12]Such, at least, is the description of Mme Geoffrin's character in M. E. Pilon's "Portraits français". M. G. Lanson, in his "Lettres du dix-huitième siècle", accuses her of vanity and consequent despotic leanings. "Elle aimait à conseiller ses amis, et les régentait en mère un peu despotique; elle n'aimait pas les indépendants, les âmes indociles et fières qui ne se laissent pas protéger, et veulent être consultés dans le bien qu'on leur fait".

[13]That a great many of the Utilitarian ideas of John Locke may be traced to their origin in the works of Montaigne has been demonstrated by M. Pierre Villey in his "L'influence de Montaigne sur les Idées pédagogiques de Locke et de Rousseau", who thus claims for the literature of his own country an honour which was commonly granted to that of England.

[14]The education recommended for Emile is not domestic. He was to be kept carefully isolated from the world, so as to escape its taint, until such time as his character would be fully matured, placing him above the reach of disastrous influences. A similar principle had prevailed at Mme de Maintenon's establishment of St. Cyr.

In studying the march of feminism among the two rival nations on either side the Channel, one cannot help being struck by the remarkable lateness of anything resembling a feminist movement in England. That the women of mediaeval England were looked down upon, not only on account of their inferior muscular strength, but also on the score of their supposed want of mental and moral stability, appears but too plainly from the numerous scornful references to the weaker sex in the literature of those days. The Song-collections of the Transition Period clearly betray the "esprit gaulois" in their brutal estimate of woman and in the tone of undisguised contempt and ridicule which prevails whenever women are the theme. The often-repeated story of the henpecked husband and the shrewish wife contains a warning against marriage which, although couched in the form of banter, evidently has its foundation in the general conviction of female depravity. The early plays with their brawling scenes and stock female characters were also most unfavourable to women. Nor did the early Renaissance bring any marked improvement either in the female morals or in the male appreciation of them, for the satires against women continued with hardly a refutation. The improvement which resulted in Ascham's days from the awakening female interest in learning and in the Caroline period from the introduction into poetry of the Platonic love ideal, was too partial and too qualified to be permanent, and in later years the Puritanic ideal of womanhood was an abomination to feminists of the Wollstonecraft type. But the general estimate of women in England had never been lower than in the notorious days that followed the Restoration. In the Middle Ages all influence had been denied them on the score of their supposed inferiority of understanding and inequality of temper; the men of the reign of Charles II regarded them merely as fair dissemblers and utter strangers to the nobler motives, in which opinion the ladiesof the age did all they could to confirm them. The higher the society in which they moved, the less likely they were to escape the many vices which prevailed in that age of depravity and libertinism. There were, of course, the Puritans, who were forced by circumstances to lead lives of retirement, regarding the vicious excesses of Whitehall with disgust and jealously guarding their women against degrading influences. The puritan ideal of womanhood was thus preserved; but there was no promise for the future in the state of close confinement and complete submission which the Judaic notions of Puritanism demanded.

In those days, when night was darkest, a faint glimmer of a coming dawn was seen. It consisted in some women beginning to take a modest share in literary pursuits. When late in the seventeenth and early in the 18th century the modern novel was passing through its preparatory stage, Mrs. Aphra Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Haywood and some other women realised that here was a new domain of literature in which woman was qualified by her fertile imagination and quick power of observation to excel. Even before the Restoration, the birth of a new social problem dealing with the relative positions of the sexes was heralded in the works of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle[15]. However, public opinion stamped any such efforts—whether conscious or no—as immature, and therefore doomed to failure.

All through the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century women were regarded from a purely sexual point of view; they were, as Mr. Lyon Blease calls it "enveloped in an atmosphere of sex". Their being judged exclusively by a sexual standard entailed as a necessary consequence the scornful neglect of those among them who were disqualified by age or lack of physical attractions. If the lot of the married women was often a sad one, considering the habitual inconstancy of husbands, the condition of those who had drawn a blank in the matrimonial lottery was even more pitiable. Hence that desperate hunting for husbands which it is among the most creditable performances of modern feminism to have lessened. It is easy to understand that it is among forsaken married women and especially among the more pronounced spinsters that we must look for such elements of female wisdom and virtue as the barren age affords. The middle-aged mother of a family was sometimes possessed of a certain hard-acquired dignity; and to the often bitter experiencesof spinsterhood we owe women of the type of Mary Astell. But contemporary literature, while on the whole inclined to be lenient towards married women who became "stricken in years" was almost uniformly severe in dealing with the "old maid of fiction", and the unmarried female had to await the broader days of humanitarianism to have her troubles understood and her wrongs righted.

But even the more privileged among the female sex, those who in their personal attractions possessed some kind of coin, the value of which masculine opinion was not slow to recognise, were not much better off than their plain sisters. The prevailing views regarding the place of women in social life were the direct outcome of the general tendencies of egoism and materialism by which the age was characterised. Woman was regarded only in her relations to the male sex, and, what was worse, woman herself had not yet learned to rebel against the shackles of a convention of centuries, unquestioningly adopted the male verdict and tried her hardest to become what the opposite sex wanted her to be. They found it easy to relinquish all individuality, and live up to the ideal set up by a degenerated manhood, and readily assumed the vices which their lack of any sense of moral responsibility prevented them from recognising as such. This total absence of moral purpose is a characteristic of the age which was not restricted to women only. The moral standard had sunk very low indeed, existence among the better situated seemed exclusively devoted to the pursuit of pleasure with all its attendant vices. From the male standpoint this view of life determined the esteem in which the female sex was held. The eighteenth century "beau" regarded woman only as an instrument of animal passion, which hypocrisy tried very successfully to gild over with a varnish of mock gallantry that was a remnant of better times of Platonic chivalry, and aroused the indignation of moralists. This gallantry tried to make up in extravagance for what it lacked in sincerity. The pursuit of the object of his passion led the libertine to the most absurd excesses which were very far removed from a devout worship[16]. Love had become a grossly sensual passion, and women were treated with exaggerated ceremony, but with little respect. Men held with Pope that "every woman is at heart a rake", and treated them accordingly. They laid a mock siege to what was conventionally called "the female heart" and when that fortress in an unguarded moment surrendered or was taken bystorm, the conqueror, after enjoying the spoils of his victory, left the poor victim to pay the penalty of social excommunication and flaunted his conquest in the face of a society which maintained a double standard of morality, and in which seduction and adultery on the part of the male were held to be titles of honour.

To fully understand the eighteenth century interpretation of the passion of love we have only to scan the pages of that new form of fiction, the novel, which has supplied us with a truthful and lifelike picture of the morals and manners of the time. In many of them the heroine is made the object of libertine attempts which to the twentieth century reader are absolutely revolting. It is true that she does not submit to the outrage, but defends her honour as well as she is able—strange to say, the eighteenth century heroine, apart from a few females of the picaresque kind, is generally represented as virtuous and chaste, rather a picture of womanhood as the author liked to imagine than a faithful one, a circumstance for which the presence of a moral purpose may account—but the secondary female characters are often of a frailty which contrasts strongly with it. The "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality" inPeregrine Pickle, for instance, are a frank confession of the most shameless female profligacy, and the outrages upon decorum and good taste described in them are corroborated by numerous descriptions of female indecency and wantonness displayed either in the baths of the fashionable watering-places or at the masquerades which were in great vogue, giving the female sex ample opportunity for displaying their charms with an utter want of delicacy. Nor were the "bucks", "beaux" or "maccaronies" at all inclined to be particular with regard to the language they used in the presence of ladies. The obscenity of their conversation aroused the indignation of Swift's Stella, but upon the whole women were too much accustomed to the coarseness of male conversation to think of protesting, nor did their parents or husbands think it necessary to interfere. Besides which, the dialogue of those novels which constituted their daily amusement was of much the same kind, and even the works of an Aphra Behn or a Mrs. Manley were read freely in the presence of young girls without being considered in the least offensive to feminine delicacy.

The improvement which the latter half of the century witnessed in this respect was, as we shall see, in no small measure due to female influence. The Bluestocking circles were largely instrumental in bringing about this purifying of conversational and literary taste.The female novelists of the next generation, while following in the steps of Richardson and Fielding, and imitating their choice of incidents, do not imitate their revolting coarseness. The stories of libertinage and violence occur in a much modified form, and the treatment is less offensive and not unfrequently humorous, taking the edge off the indelicacy of many a doubtful situation.

The chief literary exponents of female depravity, satirising women for what they were and hardly allowing an exception to the general rule, forgetting the part of men in their degraded state, and regarding the prospect of improvement with a degree of scepticism which has made them the abomination of feminists, were Alexander Pope and Lord Chesterfield. Pope's estimate of the sex, contained in the second of the "Moral Essays", and confirmed by numerous allusions in his other works, ranks him among those who jeer at women in general. Their two prevailing passions according to him, are "love of pleasure", and "love of sway":

"Men, some to bus'ness, some to pleasure take,But every woman is at heart a rake:Men, some to quiet, some to public strife,But every lady would be queen for life."

"Men, some to bus'ness, some to pleasure take,

But every woman is at heart a rake:

Men, some to quiet, some to public strife,

But every lady would be queen for life."

The former he is rather inclined to excuse, for "where the lesson taught is but to please, can Pleasure be a fault?" But the latter contains in it the germs of unavoidable wretchedness to the woman who outlives the power and influence which beauty grants her and whose punishment consists in finding herself in later years friendless and neglected, and without the redeeming blessing of a cultivated intellect and a sensitive heart, which

"... shall grow, while what fatigues the ringFlaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing."

"... shall grow, while what fatigues the ring

Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing."

The many inconsistencies in the female character are passed in review and scourged with the whip of a satirist who does not care to rack his brains for means of improvement, but whose egoism revels in the intellectual delight of scathing ridicule. Women make their very changeability a means of attracting suitors, they are "like variegated tulips," showing many colours and attracting chiefly by variety:

"Yet ne'er so sure our passion to createAs when she touched the brink of all we hate."

"Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create

As when she touched the brink of all we hate."

It was no doubt Pope's intention to run down the entire female sex, but while uttering the above insinuation, he seems fatally blind to the very questionable light the successful application of certain female devices reflected on the contemporary male character!

From a purely feminist point of view, the name of "cold-hearted rascal", by which Mary Wollstonecraft distinguished the Earl of Chesterfield, although not altogether deserved—for where his son was concerned he was anything but "cold-hearted"—may be easily accounted for. Whenever woman is the subject, his contentions as well as his tone of uttering them betray a callous, contemptuous cynicism which marks the man of fashion who "knows the season, when to take occasion by the hand", and has been taught by the intricacies of diplomacy to regard women from a purely egoistical standpoint as political weathercocks, whose undeniable influence may be turned to account, but upon whom otherwise no judgment can be too severe. There is in his writings no trace of interest whatever in women for their own sake; despising them for their weaknesses, he regards them merely as possible instruments by which his personal ends may be furthered. The morality preached in the famous "Letters to his Son" (written between the years 1739 and 1768, representing the dawn of the Bluestocking movement) has been severely and deservedly criticised. Their worst defect as well as their greatest danger is that while containing a number of maxims which are absolutely repugnant in their cynicism, they were written for an educational purpose and pretended to instil the ways of conscious virtue "which is the only solid foundation of all happiness."[17]Another objection is that he insisted far too much on "the graces" (i. e. deportment), while almost forgetting to recommend the more solid acquirements of the character. Mrs. Chapone complained that he substituted appearances for the real excellences which she considered more important, and Mrs. Delany wrote that his letters were generally considered ingenious and useful as to polish of manners, but very hurtful in a moral sense. "Les grâces", she added, "are the sum total of his religion." This, and the fact that he made a point of discussing moral questions of the greatest importance with a child not yet ten years old and incapable of grasping their full purport, afterwards made Mary Wollstonecraft turn upon him with her accustomed vehemence. No doubt she found this education of deliberate cynicismmore difficult to forgive than even his cold contempt of the female sex.

Chesterfield wanted to perfect his son in what he considered the most important of arts, to be recommended to both sexes with equal emphasis: that of pleasing. No man held more by opinion as a means of reaching aims than he. To read his correspondence one might think the chief aim of life to be a perfect mastery of the art of "wriggling oneself into favour", with all its attendant insincerity and duplicity. Such was the man whose advice the bishop of Waterford asked in respect to the kind of reading to be permitted to his daughters[18].

When women are the topic, Lord Chesterfield invariably appears at his worst. Nowhere in literature do we find a lower estimate of the sex and a more sneeringly insolent ridicule of their foibles. Little is known about the marriage of young Philip Stanhope, who even forgot to inform his father of the circumstance, and who died too soon after to test the truth of his father's teaching that "husband and wife are commonly clogs upon each other." However, with such a mentor his chances of happiness in the matrimonial state would have been slight in any case.

In the first place Lord Chesterfield regards women as intellectually inferior and beneath notice. They are to him only "children of a larger growth"[19]who seldom reason or act consistently; their best resolutions being swayed by their inordinate passions, which their reason is to weak to keep under constant control. Even the so-called "femme forte",—of which type Catherine the Second was a prominent representative—was in his eyes only another proof of this statement; for at bottom all women are Machiavelians and they cannot do anything with moderation, sentiment always getting the better of reason[20]. They do not appreciate or even understand the language of common sense, and the proper tone to be adopted in their presence is "the polite jargon of good company"[21].

His opinion of female morals is not more flattering. Women are capable of, and ruled by two passions: vanity and love, of which the latter is made dependent upon the former. "He who flatters them most pleases them best; and they are most in love with himwho they think is the most in love with them"[22]. They value their beauty—real or imaginary—above everything, and in this respect "scarce any flattery is too gross for them to follow".

The above, if true, might be a reason for a man to rather avoid female company than court it. However, says Chesterfield, low as they are, we cannot afford to ignore them, for it is not to be denied that they are a social power. "As women are a considerable, or at least a pretty numerous part of company; and as their suffrages go a long way towards establishing a man's character in the fashionable part of the world (which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it), it is necessaryto pleasethem". The sole use of women in Chesterfield's eyes is that they may be turned into a ladder for social advancement: "here women may be put to some use"; and he who has discovered the right way of humouring them may serve his own interest by cultivating their acquaintance and fooling them to the top of their bent with judicious and cleverly administered flattery. Of all Chesterfield's insinuations this is certainly the worst.

But how is woman to be pleased? The scheme for social promotion involves an effort to please on an even more general scale. Women feel a contempt for men who pass their time in "ruelles", making themselves their voluntary slaves; they value those most who are held in the highest esteem among their fellowmen; for this will render their conquest by a woman worth her while. However, to please men, and gain influence among them, the concurrence of women is indispensable, and so forth, ad nauseam.

Practical hints are not wanting either. The best stepping-stones to fortune are "a sort of veteran women of condition" who, besides having great experience, feel flattered by the least attention from a young fellow and in return render him excellent services by pointing out to him those manners and attentions which pleased and engaged them when they were in the pride of their first youth and beauty, and are therefore the most likely to prove effective.

In conclusion, two instances may here be quoted of the excellent father's recommendable advice to his son in regard to the exploitation of female sympathies. The first regards that Mme du Bocage whose name will be mentioned again in connection with her relations to the Bluestocking circles in England. When young Stanhope was residingin Paris and frequenting some salons, Lord Chesterfield advised his son to make the French lady his confidante and confess to her his eagerness "to please", asking her in true hypocritical fashion to teach him her secret of pleasing everybody. Offered under different circumstances this might have been a pretty compliment, coming as it did from the pen of such a cynic and confirmed womanhater it was about the worst insult that could be offered to a lady of "esprit" and dignity.

But the second passage is even worse. The exemplary father here suggests a full scheme for political advancement through the intermediacy of a lady of unsullied reputation, who was to be courted and inveigled into granting her concurrence in a manner so beyond words that we must let the letter speak for itself. "A propos, on m'assure que Mme de Blot, sans avoir des traits, est joli comme un coeur, et que nonobstant cela, elle s'en est tenu jusqu'ici scrupuleusement à son mari, quoiqu'il ait déja plus qu'un an qu'elle est mariée. Elle n'y pense pas; il faut décrotter cette femme-là. Décrottez vous done tous les deux réciproquement. Force, assiduités, attentions, regards tendres, et déclarations passionnées de votre côté produiront au moins quelque velléité du sien. Et quand une fois la velléité y est, les oeuvres ne sont pas loin."

Social life in the eighteenth century had indeed sunk to the appalling depth which such letters as Chesterfield's reveal, through an utter lack of purpose. The time was entirely void of social interest. At a time when the French philosophy which had been so largely stimulated by British example found its way into the assemblies of Paris, awakening a vivid intellectual interest in thousands of minds and giving birth to a national thought-life which laid the theoretical foundations not only of the coming changes in the social order, but also of that glorious edifice of science of which the nineteenth century was to witness the rapid growth—English society was content to let things remain as they were and did not at once respond to the call that came from beyond the Channel. If England, too, contained a number of social abuses that were rank and appealed to the justice of Heaven, they did not heed them. The self-sufficiency thus revealed remained characteristic of the better classes in England, and was in the majority of cases increased rather than lessened by the outbreak of the Revolution, when most Englishmen felt secure in the conviction that in England there were no great wrongs to be righted. It had its origin in gross selfishness and coarse materialism, which did not leave thebulk of the nation an opportunity to realise the miserable condition of the poorer classes in Ireland,—in England itself there was comparatively little pauperism in the beginning—or the gross injustice of the prevailing system of Parliamentary representation, or the cruelty of punishments, or the abominable condition of the jails in which thousands of small offenders were abandoned to the horrors of slow and gradual extinction, or the shame of the execrable system of slavery prevailing in the colonies. It was not until the second half of the century that the great humanitarian movement began to make rapid progress; before that great dawn British society remained undisturbed while pursuing their round of pleasure which was interrupted only by death. Of the heralds of a better time, who acted according to their lights, and of whom some were doomed to failure, while others were to see their efforts crowned with ultimate success, it is gratifying to think that a fair percentage were women. If the education of men was sadly inadequate, that of women was so hopelessly neglected that ladies of quality could hardly sign their own name. They were, upon the whole, quite content to remain in ignorance. Their horror of the "femme savante" was such, that all appearance of even the slightest degree of learning was carefully avoided. The result was disastrous. Dean Swift can hardly be said to rank among the defenders of the sex, and yet even he recognised the absurdity of this utter ignorance. In a letter, dated October 7th 1734, occurring in Mrs. Delany's correspondence, and addressed to her, he says: "I speak for the public good of this country; because a pernicious heresy prevails here among the men, that it is the duty of your sex to be fools in every article except what is merely domestic; and to do the ladies justice, there are very few of them without a good share of that heresy, except upon one article, that they have as little regard for family business as for the improvement of their minds." He proposes to "carry Mrs. Delany about among his adversaries", and (I will) "dare them to produce one instance where yourwant of ignorancemakes you affected, pretending, conceited, disdainful, endeavouring to speak like a scholar, with twenty more faults objected by themselves, their lovers or their husbands. But I fear your case is desperate, for I know you never laugh at a jest before you understand it, and I must question whether you understand a fan, or have so good a fancy at silks as others; and your way of spelling would not be intelligible."

Only those qualities were considered worth developing which werecalculated to excite desire in the opposite sex. Women were skilled in the commonplace conversation of the gaming-table, and were taught to dance and to play the spinet, or the harpsichord, and to say ballads, regardless of talent. Household duties and needlework were held in less repute, and the qualities of the mind were utterly disregarded. All feminine education was deliberately discouraged.[23]

In marriage the wife was completely subjected to the husband's authority. If he proved inconstant—which was the rule—and transferred his attentions to other women, it was considered most unwise in the wife to object, the approved course being to pretend ignorance of the fact, lest the husband should be displeased at being taken to task by his inferior. About 1700 Lord Halifax's "Advice to a Daughter" was published; and being the reflections of a man of recognised social abilities, became a standard-work not only in England, but also on the other side the Channel, where it was translated into French and repeatedly quoted with great deference. Viewed in the light of the conditions then prevailing it must be unreservedly admitted that the advice is absolutely the best that could be given under the circumstances. Mr. Lyon Blease's indignation in quoting it, seems due rather to very natural disgust at the social conditions that necessitated it, than to the nature of the advice in itself. Lord Halifax exhorts his daughter to consider that she "lives in a time which hath rendered some kind of frailties so habitual that they lay claim to large grains of allowance." This reasoning would seem faulty to a moralist, but there is more. "This being so, remember that next to the danger of committing the fault yourself,the greatest is thatof seeing it in your husband. Do not seem to look or hear that way, if he is a man of sense he will reclaim himself; the folly of it is of itself sufficient to cure him; if he is not so, he will be provoked, but not reformed." In other words he advises her to "eat her half loaf and be happy", rather than disturb her share of happiness by aiming higher than is compatible with the character and morality of the average male. Halifax further observes that a benign indulgence on the wife's part for the husband's wanderings will "make him more yielding in other things", i. e. he admonishes his daughter to make a compromise, enabling her to acquire certain advantages by conniving at her husband's faithlessness! This is certainly pretty bad; but there seems no room for any doubt that Halifax indeed struck the key-note of eighteenth century opinion.

So far we have looked at the purely negative side of the picture, which presents no features that can be called redeeming. Before passing to the brighter side to examine the utterances of those who aimed at the moral improvement of the female sex, or at an amelioration of their social position, or both, we shall have to make some mention of the views expressed by Swift in his "Letter to a Young Lady on her Marriage". The general tone is certainly not encouraging. It holds the male sex to be absolutely superior in matters physical, intellectual and moral. While criticising with his habitual sarcasm the errors, fopperies and vices of the female sex, Swift does not even trouble to consider what has made them so depraved. The nearest suggestion of possible blame to the male sex in regard to their treatment of women is to be found in a passage in the "Hints towards an Essay on Conversation". There are certain signs of a coming dawn in this passage. After complaining of the degeneracy of conversation, "with the pernicious consequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions," Swift suggests that it may be partly owing to "the custom arisen for some time past of excluding women from any share in our society, farther than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of an amour." In this respect he readily admits the superiority of the more peaceable part of Charles the First's reign, "the highest period of politeness in England," when the example set by France, and the love-ideals prevailing among French society found English followers, "and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime Platonic notions they had, or personated, in love and friendship; I conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve andexalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low." This astonishing avowal on the part of one so inclined to cynicism throws a most unfavourable light upon the relations between the sexes in the early years of the eighteenth century.

However, if it could not be denied that manners and morals had decayed, Swift never doubted that the female sex were chiefly responsible. In his advice to the young bride their depravity is contrasted with the sound wisdom and the more dignified conduct(!) of their lords and masters. Swift satirises the worthlessness of the females who spend their afternoon visiting their neighbours to indulge in talking scandal, and whose evenings are devoted to the gambling-table. His opinion of the sex in general is such as to make him emphatically warn his youngprotégéeagainst the dangers of female conversation. "Your only safe way of conversing with them is, by a firm resolution to proceed in your practice and behaviour directly contrary to whatever they say or do." The fondness of the sex for finery disgusts him to such an extent, that he "cannot conceive them to be human creatures, but a certain sort of species hardly a degree above a monkey."

Such was the verdict Swift passed upon the women of his time, whose moral ideals, he was willing to grant, might be and ought to be the same as those of men, always excepting "a certain reservedness, which however, as they manage it, is nothing but affection and hypocrisy."

Man being superior to woman in every respect, also morally, it follows that her chief aim should be to render herself more worthy of him. Swift here introduces that pernicious theory of "relativity" which in Rousseau's "Emile" was to arouse the indignation of Mary Wollstonecraft. An effort is to be made to raise women out of that pool of iniquity into which they have sunk, not so much for the sake of their precious souls, as to render them more acceptable companions to men. Whatever in Swift seems to favour a certain degree of emancipation owes its origin to this consideration. He does not believe in what he calls "the exalted passion of a French romance". By the time his first passion is spent, the husband will want a companion to amuse and cheer his leisure hours. Some provision should be made for the years to come when, beauty having disappeared forever, it will be necessary to fall back upon the accomplishments of the mind as a substitute, by means of which the husband's esteemmay be gained. Thus, by a process differing materially from that of the feminists, Swift arrives at the same conclusion; viz. that the first step towards improvement is the institution of some kind of mental education for women. At the same time he has little confidence in the mental capacities of the female sex, so that his claims are in truth modest enough. Books of history and travel represent the limit of what he deems them capable of grasping; and he even recommends the making extracts from them, should the fair reader's memory happen to be a little weak! For the rest the task of instructing woman will necessarily devolve upon man; i. e. upon the husband and upon those of his friends whom he judges best calculated to enrich her mind by their advice and conversation, and to set her right should her imagination tend to lead her judgment astray! "Learned women," in the full sense of the term, were an abomination to Swift, who believed the average female intellect to be so deficient that "they could never arrive in point of learning to the perfection of a schoolboy."

There can be no doubt that Swift's estimate of female capabilities was the general one, which makes it all the more astonishing to find that as early as 1673 a deliberate attempt was made to "raise women to the dignity and usefulness which distinguished their ancestresses", by giving them an education which included a rather considerable amount of knowledge. A school for girls was founded in that year by a certain Mrs. Makin, who explained her purpose in "An Essay to revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues; with an Answer to the Objection against this Way of Education", dedicated to Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York. The author protests against "the barbarous custom to breed women low", which arises from the general belief that women are not endowed with the same reason as man. Learning, and even virtue, in a woman are "scorned and neglected as pedantic things, fit only for the vulgar", and the creation of schools seems the only way to restore women to the place they once held. Mrs. Makin wisely refrains from asking too much, and therefore will not "as some have wittily done, plead for female pre-eminence. To ask too much, is the way to be denied all". A plea, therefore, for female education as a means of improving female morals. Curiously enough, one of her pupils, Elizabeth Drake, was destined to become Mrs. Robinson, and the mother of that Elizabeth Robinson who as Mrs. Montagu became the recognised queen of the Bluestockings.

To strengthen her argument Mrs. Makin points to a number of women who were proficient in knowledge among the Ancients, after which she refers to some Englishwomen of great erudition, as: Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Newcastle, "who overtops many grave gownsmen", and the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles the First, whose tutoress Mrs. Makin had been.

Her school for gentlewomen was situated at Tottenham High Cross, then within four miles of London, on the road to Ware, "where by the blessing of God, gentlewomen may be instructed in the principles of religion and in all manner of sober and virtuous education: more particularly in alle things ordinarily taught in other schools." Half the time available for study, according to the sort of prospectus with which the essay closes, was to be devoted to foreign languages, particularly Latin and French, and those who wanted further instruction could be served with "Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish, in all which this gentlewoman hath a competent knowledge." As a linguist, therefore, Mrs. Makin here constitutes herself the rival of the famous translator of Epictetus, Mrs. Carter. But she realised that the gift of languages is not granted everybody. "Those who think one language enough for a woman may forbear the languages and learn only (!) experimental philosophy."

That the lady herself regarded the undertaking more or less as an experiment appears from the fact that the terms were made dependent on the success achieved. The minimum was twenty pounds per annum, but in case of very marked improvement "something more would be expected", it being left to the happy parents to judge how much more was due to the preceptress.

A discourse on the "practicability of the scheme" was to be delivered by a proxy "every Tuesday at Mrs. Mason's Coffee House in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange; and Thursdays at the 'Bolt and Tun' in Fleet Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon."

That in Mrs. Robinson's case, at least, Mrs. Makin's efforts had not been wholly in vain, is demonstrated by the fact that her children called their mother "Mrs. Speaker", probably in connection with her easy flow of language in the miniature contests of wit that used to be held among them, which were no doubt an excellent preparation for the later Mrs. Montagu's social task.

If we consider that both Port Royal and St. Cyr aimed far more at instilling moral principles than imparting useful knowledge andthat neither in France nor in England had so sweeping an assertion ever been put forward, it seems only giving Mrs. Makin her due to allow her a prominent place among the pioneers of female education in Europe.

The history of feminism is as much that of the indirect influences fostering the movement while slowly and almost imperceptibly leavening the whole of society, as that of the direct and embittered struggle for enfranchisement. The earlier half of the eighteenth century cannot boast any direct champions of the cause beyond that Mary Astell of whom it will be our business to speak presently, no martyrs out of whose sacrifice arose the hopes of better things to come, but there are some instances of men—and even of women—of letters who, while aiming at a less ambitious or even a different object, indirectly contributed to the growth of new opinions regarding the social status of women. Among them must be reckoned the essayists, whose aim was (as the General Advertisement of theTatlerhas it) "to teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation." Life is chiefly made up of such seeming trifles, and the men who by pointing out the shortcomings of humanity bring about an improvement in the general morals may claim to be mentioned among the benefactors of mankind. Where the correction of the slighter errors was avowedly the object in view, the essayists were naturally drawn to consider the relations between the sexes, to criticise women freely, and to point out the ready way towards improvement. That the success they undeniably achieved was not—at least in its direct consequences—in proportion to the talent lavished on the essays, nor to the eagerness with which these literary efforts were devoured by the reading public, was due mainly to two causes. In the first place, considering probably that the times were not ripe for that more direct form of attack upon the stronghold of conventional manners and customs which in arousing opposition and resistance results in war to the knife and ends in the complete overthrow of one of the combatants, they chose to inculcate their moral lessons almost imperceptibly, assuming a light and bantering tone of ridicule which was not likely to give serious offence and might cause the reader to laugh at her own expense and perhaps make her consider how much of truth there lay in a criticism so jovially offered. No doubt thisplan was the wisest course under the circumstances then prevailing, but it is not the way in which thorough reforms arise. Moreover, the moral lessons were introduced so much at random, and with such utter lack of system; and the improvements suggested were so vague, that in stating that the periodical essay of the days of Addison and Steele helped in some measure to prepare the way for the more emphatic assertions of the later feminists, we have done the essayists full justice. Their feminism is indeed extremely qualified, and stamps them as the forerunners of the moralists among the Bluestockings, while leaving a very wide gulf between them and Mary Wollstonecraft.

The thought of making anything like a definite claim never entered their minds; the time for suggesting extensive social and political improvements was yet far off, and Addison and Steele were content to recommend in a general way the cultivation of the female mind as the readiest way to overcome the prevailing worthlessness and irresponsibility, thus continuing a line of thought which others had held before them, and bringing it under the public notice. This involves the supposition that the female mind is improveable to an eminent degree, and here Addison and Steele fully agree. In No. 172 of theGuardianthe latter, in giving an extract from a poem "in praise of the invention of writing, written by a lady", delivers himself of the sentiment that "the fair sex are as capable as men of the liberal sciences; and indeed there is no very good argument against the frequent instruction of females of condition this way,but that they are too powerful without that advantage."

Addison in another number (155) of the same periodical says that "he has often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improveable minds as the male part of the species, why should they not be cultivated by the same method? Why should reason be left to itself in one of the sexes, and be disciplined with so much care in the other?" An assertion, therefore, of the faculty of Reason in woman, and a denial of that much-professed sexual character upon which eighteenth century society was almost exclusively founded, and which Steele held to be the main cause of contemporary female inferiority. He complained (TatlerNo. 61) that the fact that the eighteenth century woman valued herself only on her beauty, caused her to be regarded by men on no other consideration as "a mere woman" from a purely sexual point of view; it being his opinion that the rule for pleasing long (which, with a want oflogic in matters of sex characteristic of his time, he held to be woman's chief consideration) was "to obtain such qualifications as would make them so, were they not women," and therefore without any reference to sex.

The superiority of the accomplishments of the mind over mere physical beauty is a favourite theme with Steele, and may be found illustrated in the usual way in No. 33 of theSpectatorin the character of the two sisters Laetitia and Daphne. The suitor whom the former's charms have captivated is not long in discovering that her pleasing appearance but ill conceals the insipidity of her character, and promptly transfers his affections to the less handsome but more cultured and therefore far more agreeable Daphne. And so Steele wants it to be realised that we commit a gross blunder when "in our daughters we take care of their persons and neglect their minds", whereas "in our sons we are so intent upon adorning their minds that we wholly neglect their bodies" (SpectatorNo. 66). Strangely enough in a moralist, the ethical side of the question is here left out of discussion.

The conclusions drawn by both Steele and Addison from this neglect of the education of the mind are characteristic of the difference between the two. Steele observes that the unavoidable loss of her beauty through the ravages of time causes a woman in the prime of her years to be out of fashion and neglected, and he pleads earnestly for an education to be given to women, that they may have better chances of happiness in the later years of matrimony; whilst Addison with his habitual irony weakens the impression produced by his assertion of the perfectibility of the female mind, by ridiculing the much-discussed "femmes savantes" in his picture of Lady Lizard and her daughters reading Fontenelle's "Pluralité des mondes" while "busy preserving several fruits of the season, dividing their speculation between jellies and stars, and making a sudden transition from the sun to an apricot, or from the Copernican system to the figure of a cheese-cake." His treatment of the question is throughout tinged with sarcasm. "If the female tongue will be in motion", he says, after complaining of theircopia verborum, "why should it not be set to go right?" Thus science might be made into an antidote to scandal and intrigue.

The most directly feminist among the authors of the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century was Mary Astell, the author of "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies", written in 1696. Her personalityand ideas remind us strongly of Mlle de Gournay, who lived nearly a century earlier. The conviction that all contact with the world and its wickedness would infallibly end in moral ruin had made Mary Astell the warm advocate of education in a nunnery, far from the madding crowd, where women might be brought up to lives of Christian virtue. The very fact, however, that she was not a worldly woman, made her overlook the circumstance that her scheme, however promising in theory, could never hope to stand the test of practice. It was to be expected that the first practical hint for an educational establishment for women—a hint which, however, was not more regarded than Mary Astell's had been—would come from one whose close contact with the outside world enabled him to do something more than brood over schemes that were incapable of realisation. Mary Astell in her religious zeal had entirely forgotten to take into account the innate proclivities of the female character. Daniel Defoe knew how to reconcile the demands of life and of womanhood with those of a moral educational establishment, and he suggested a scheme which was certainly more capable of being put into practice than Mary Astell's. But even he was firmly convinced that his proposal would meet with almost universal disapprobation and therefore recommended it to the consideration of a later generation. Defoe was a man of great inventiveness and sound common sense, and many undeniable improvements were suggested in his "Essay upon Projects" (1702). He had certainly heard of, and very probably read (although he misquotes the title) Mrs. Astell's "Serious Proposal", and it redounds to his credit that he is one of the very few contemporaries of that eccentric lady to do justice to her motives in seriously considering her ideal of a nunnery, instead of making it the object of obscene insinuations like those of which Dr. Swift was guilty in the pages of theTatler. His estimate of the possibilities of women was very considerably in advance of his time, and places him among the most advanced of woman's male advocates. Unlike the essayists, his tone is serious throughout, and the proposal well worth considering, although even Defoe has so far become tainted with the prevailing opinion regarding women as to assume certain sexual propensities which he fears will be in the way of their moral improvement. "I doubt a method proposed by an ingenious lady in a little book called "Advice to the Ladies" would be found practicable," he says. "For, saving my respect for the sex,the levity which is perhaps a little peculiar to them, at least in their youth, will not bear the restraint,and I am satisfied nothing but the height of bigotry can keep a nunnery." Here we have the voice of worldly experience and psychological insight protesting against Utopianism. For in women who for ages have lacked the moulding influence of education Nature cannot fail to assert herself, and will ruin the scheme.

On the other hand, his confidence in the improvability of the sex is such as to make him claim for them the right to an education which will bring out their dormant qualities. "I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilised and a Christian country, that we deny the advantage of learning to our women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence, which I am confident, had they the advantage of education equal to us,they would be guilty of less than ourselves." That the pioneer should occasionally somewhat overstep the bounds of moderation is surely pardonable. Defoe in his zeal holds the capacities of women to be greater and their senses quicker than those of men.

Nor does he fail to recognise the advantage that will accrue to the female soul from an education which will "polish the rough diamond", and without which its lustre might never appear. The Academy for Women which he proposes, therefore, shall be "different from all sort of religious confinements," and above all, there shall be no vows of celibacy. The ascetic view of finding fault with every innocent enjoyment seems to him as objectionable as the perpetual pursuit of pleasure upon which it was a reaction.

The Academy was to be a sort of public school, supplying women with the advantages of learning "suitable to their genius", without requiring any monastic vows which were sure to be broken. Defoe is inclined to try his women "by the principles of honour and strict virtue", being convinced that the measure of keeping the men effectually away from the college will put an end to all intriguing. According to him, temptation comes with the suggestion of opportunity and all modesty takes its root in custom, "for this alone, when inclinations reign, tho' virtue's fled, will act of vice restrain".

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